CHICAGO – JANUARY 01: A general view of action between the Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings during the NHL Winter Classic at Wrigley Field on January 1, 2009 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

On the ice, the Minnesota Wild are fighting to get back to .500. Off the ice, the team’s ownership has been busy seeking big events.

“We are hungry people here,” Wild owner Craig Leipold said this morning.

Leipold admitted the Wild have had conversations with the NHL about bringing its Winter Classic annual outdoor game to Minnesota.

He also said the Wild have applied to host the 2011 NHL draft.

This season’s Winter Classic game will be Jan. 1 at Fenway Park in Boston between the Bruins and Philadelphia Flyers. An announcement for the Jan. 2, 2011, game hasn’t been made.

“It’s becoming the biggest event in the National Hockey League,” Leipold said. “We’ve told them that we’re interested. We think this market would be a very compelling market to put a game in because this is really where pond hockey started. That’s kind of our whole theme when we talk about the Winter Classic opportunity here, that the roots of hockey in the United States is pond hockey in Minnesota.”

The options to host the game would seem to be the University of Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium or the Twins’ Target Field.

The NHL draft hasn’t been held in Minnesota since 1989, at the former Met Center in Bloomington.

“We would like to have it; we think the draft is an awful lot of fun, great for the community,” Leipold said. “And now, more and more Minnesota kids are being drafted in the first couple rounds. We have been very pro-active.”

The Wild were among finalists to host next summer’s draft, which was awarded to Los Angeles’ Nokia Theater.

“We didn’t get it, but we think we’re going to be a top finalist for 2011,” Leipold said. “We’re selling hard for that one.”

Sean Henderson, father of Associated Press Minnesota high school football player of the year Seantrel Henderson of Cretin-Derham Hall, said this morning that a home visit by Gophers coach Tim Brewster and offensive line coach Tim Davis on Tuesday evening “went great.”

“Minnesota’s our home school,” Sean said. “Coach Brewster has been following Seantrel since he was a freshman and actually was the first coach to offer him a scholarship. So we’ll always have a lot of respect for coach Brewster and the Gophers’ program.”

The elder Henderson said Brewster emphasized the importance of staying home during the 2 1/2-hour meeting at the Hendersons’ south Minneapolis home.

“He said that everything’s here for Seantrel and how big and important it would be to the people of Minnesota if he stayed home,” Sean said. “He said that the Gophers are building something now and they wanted him with them to win a Big Ten title and possibly a national championship in the next few years.”

Sean said Seantrel, who visits Southern California this weekend, still has no favorites and doesn’t plan to announce his decision until Feb. 3.

Brewster followed up on Tuesday evening’s visit by waking Sean up at 7:45 this morning to say how much he enjoyed the meeting.

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